Standard Arabic phonology


While many languages have numerous dialects that differ in phonology, contemporary spoken Arabic is more properly described as a continuum of varieties. This article deals primarily with Modern Standard Arabic, which is the standard variety shared by educated speakers throughout Arabic-speaking regions. MSA is used in writing in formal print media and orally in newscasts, speeches and formal declarations of numerous types.
Modern Standard Arabic has 28 consonant phonemes and 6 vowel phonemes, with four "emphatic" consonants that contrast with their non-emphatic counterparts. Some of these phonemes have coalesced in the various modern dialects, while new phonemes have been introduced through borrowing or phonemic splits. A "phonemic quality of length" applies to consonants as well as vowels.

History

Of the 29 Proto-Semitic consonants, only one has been lost:, which merged with, while became . Various other consonants have also changed sound, but have remained distinct. An original lenited to, and – consistently attested in pre-Islamic Greek transcription of Arabic languages – became palatalized to or by the time of the Quran, and to,, or after early Muslim conquests and in MSA.
Its emphatic counterpart was considered by Arabs to be the most unusual sound in Arabic. For most modern dialects, it has become an emphatic stop with loss of the laterality or, with complete loss of any pharyngealization or velarization,. The classical pronunciation withpharyngealization still occurs in the Mehri language, and the similar sound without velarization,, exists in other Modern South Arabian languages.Other changes may also have happened; Classical Arabic pronunciation is not thoroughly recorded and different reconstructions of the sound system of Proto-Semitic propose different phonetic values. One example is the emphatic consonants, which are pharyngealized in modern pronunciations but may have been velarized in the eighth century and glottalized in Proto-Semitic.
Reduction of and between vowels occurs in a number of circumstances and is responsible for much of the complexity of third-weak verbs. Early Akkadian transcriptions of Arabic names show that this reduction had not yet occurred as of the early part of the 1st millennium BC.
The Classical Arabic language as recorded was a poetic koine that reflected a consciously archaizing dialect, chosen based on the tribes of the western part of the Arabian Peninsula, who spoke the most conservative variants of Arabic. Even at the time of Muhammad and before, other dialects existed with many more changes, including the loss of most glottal stops, the loss of case endings, the reduction of the diphthongs and into monophthongs, etc. Most of these changes are present in most or all modern varieties of Arabic.
An interesting feature of the writing system of the Quran is that it contains certain features of Muhammad's native dialect of Mecca, corrected through diacritics into the forms of standard Classical Arabic. Among these features visible under the corrections are the loss of the glottal stop and a differing development of the reduction of certain final sequences containing : Evidently, the final became as in the Classical language, but final became a different sound, possibly . This is the apparent source of the alif maqṣūrah 'restricted alif' where a final is reconstructed: a letter that would normally indicate or some similar high-vowel sound, but is taken in this context to be a logical variant of alif and represent the sound.

Historical development

Arabic phonology has evolved over centuries, influenced by language contact and historical expansion. Classical Arabic phonological features have shifted in modern dialects, partly due to the spread of Arabic through conquest and trade. These changes have resulted in both the preservation of classical features and significant innovations across dialects.

Literary Arabic

The "colloquial" spoken dialects of Arabic are learned at home and constitute the native languages of Arabic speakers. "Formal" Modern Standard Arabic is learned at school; although many speakers have a native-like command of the language, it is technically not the native language of any speakers. Both varieties can be both written and spoken, although the colloquial varieties are rarely written down and the formal variety is spoken mostly in formal circumstances, e.g., in radio and TV broadcasts, formal lectures, parliamentary discussions and to some extent between speakers of different colloquial dialects.
Even when the literary language is spoken, it is normally only spoken in its standard form when reading a prepared text out loud or communicating between speakers of different colloquial dialects. When speaking extemporaneously, speakers tend to deviate somewhat from the strict literary language in the direction of the colloquial varieties. There is a continuous range of "in-between" spoken varieties: from nearly orthodox Modern Standard Arabic, to a form that still uses MSA grammar and vocabulary but with colloquial influence, to a form of the colloquial language that imports a number of words and grammatical constructions in MSA, to a form that is close to pure colloquial but with the "rough edges" smoothed out, to forms that are purely colloquial.
The particular variant used depends on the social class and education level of the speakers involved and the level of formality of the speech situation. Often it will vary within a single encounter, e.g., moving from nearly pure MSA to a more mixed language in the process of a radio interview, as the interviewee becomes more comfortable with the interviewer. This type of variation is characteristic of the diglossia that exists throughout the Arabic-speaking world.
File:هيئة المجمع اللغوي الملكي يوم تدشينه.png|thumb|Coverage in Al-Ahram in 1934 of the inauguration of the Academy of the Arabic Language in Cairo, an organization of major importance to the modernization of Arabic.Although Modern Standard Arabic is a unitary language, its pronunciation varies somewhat from country to country and from region to region within a country. The variation in individual "accents" of MSA speakers tends to mirror corresponding variations in the colloquial speech of the speakers in question, but with the distinguishing characteristics moderated somewhat. It is important in descriptions of "Arabic" phonology to distinguish between pronunciation of a given colloquial dialect and the pronunciation of MSA by these same speakers.
Although they are related, they are not the same. For example, the phoneme that derives from Standard Arabic has many different pronunciations in the modern spoken varieties, e.g.,. Speakers whose native variety has either or will often use the same pronunciation when speaking MSA. Even speakers from Cairo, whose native Egyptian Arabic has, normally use when speaking MSA.
For another example, many colloquial varieties are known for a type of vowel harmony in which the presence of an "emphatic consonant" triggers backed allophones of nearby vowels. In many spoken varieties, the backed or "emphatic" vowel allophones spread a fair distance in both directions from the triggering consonant. In some varieties, most notably Egyptian Arabic, the "emphatic" allophones spread throughout the entire word, usually including prefixes and suffixes, even at a distance of several syllables from the triggering consonant.
Speakers of colloquial varieties with this vowel harmony tend to introduce it into their MSA pronunciation as well, but usually with a lesser degree of spreading than in the colloquial varieties. For example, speakers of colloquial varieties with extremely long-distance harmony may allow a moderate, but not extreme, amount of spreading of the harmonic allophones in their MSA speech, while speakers of colloquial varieties with moderate-distance harmony may only harmonize immediately adjacent vowels in MSA.

Vowels

Modern Standard Arabic has six vowel phonemes forming three pairs of corresponding short and long vowels. Many spoken varieties also include and. Modern Standard Arabic has two diphthongs. Allophony in different dialects of Arabic can occur and is partially conditioned by neighboring consonants within the same word. The following are some general rules:
  • * retracted to in the environment of a neighboring, or an emphatic consonant :,,,,, and in a few regional standard pronunciations also and ;
  • * only in Iraq and the Persian Gulf: before a word boundary;
  • * advanced to in the environment of most consonants:
  • ** labial consonants,
  • ** plain coronal consonants with the exception of : namely,,,,,,,, and
  • ** glottal consonants
  • **, and ;
  • * Across North Africa and West Asia, the allophones and may be realized differently, either as, or both as ;
  • * In northwestern Africa, the open front vowel is raised to or.
  • * Across North Africa and West Asia, may be realized as before or adjacent to emphatic consonants and,,. can also have different realizations, i.e.. Sometimes with one value for each vowel in both short and long lengths or two different values for each short and long lengths. They can be distinct phonemes in loanwords for a number of speakers.
  • * In Egypt, close vowels have different values; short initial or medial:, ← instead of. and completely become and respectively in some other particular dialects. Unstressed final long are most often shortened or reduced: → , → , → .
However, the actual rules governing vowel-retraction are a good deal more complex and have relatively little in the way of an agreed-upon standard, as there are often competing notions of what constitutes a "prestige" form. Often, even highly proficient speakers will import the vowel-retraction rules from their native dialects. Thus, for example, in the Arabic of someone from Cairo, emphatic consonants will affect every vowel between word boundaries, whereas certain Saudi speakers exhibit emphasis only on the vowels adjacent to an emphatic consonant. Certain speakers exhibit a degree of asymmetry in leftward vs. rightward spread of vowel-retraction.
The final heavy syllable of a root is stressed.
The short vowels are all possible allophones of across different dialects; e.g., قُلْت is pronounced or or, since the difference between the short mid vowels and is never phonemic, and they are mostly found in complementary distribution, except for a number of speakers where they can be phonemic but only in foreign words.
The short vowels are all possible allophones of across different dialects; e.g., مِن is pronounced or or since the difference between the short mid vowels and is never phonemic, and they are mostly found in complementary distribution, except for a number of speakers where they can be phonemic but only in foreign words.
The long mid vowels and appear to be phonemic in most varieties of Arabic except in general Maghrebi Arabic, where they merge with and. For example, لون is generally pronounced in Mashriqi dialects but in most Maghrebi Arabic. The long mid vowels can be used in Modern Standard Arabic in dialectal words or in some stable loanwords or foreign names, as in روما and شيك .
Foreign words often have a liberal sprinkling of long vowels, as vowels tend to be written as long vowels in foreign loans, under the influence of European-language orthographies which write down every vowel with a letter. The long mid vowels and are always rendered with the letters ي and و, respectively, accompanied by a preceding hamzah sitting above and below an alif respectively word-initially. In general, the pronunciation of loanwords is highly dependent on the speaker's native variety.